In answer to all this the bankers vunually "Nonsense, the Chinese will get nothing from us in the way of free money' to play] with until they have an united and stable Government and then only under adequate guaran it will be usefully' spent, As: for money coming in from other quar-tera, forget it! 'The Consortium will' take care of that." During! these past few years the writer, has never heard a _congortium banker discuss the funding Joan that he did not give the hard and assurance that no loan of] tree money", so called, would accompany or "follow the funding Joan until China were by common consent, and obviously to all, in position to use it and not misuse When this conference opened, however, the Chinese were by no means in such @ plastic and sweetly tensonnable state of mind the Consortium heads abroad im. gained they would be. Anyone in China would have known it and the bankers abroad were told often enough how the conference would be accepted, but they. would not believe it.' Peking accepted the conference as an assembly of high foreign delegates coming: to do penance for their sins the spring and summer, and, for all' the necamulated sins' of several generations back, Peking therefore proposed to dictate the terms of every agreement reached or break up the conference and put the onus of it on the foreigner.
A Littit Loan Suggested therefore happened that, when the bankers first. began to' get down to business, they learned from Dr, W. W. Yen, that the Chinese had not the slightest tention " of paying. anything Vike seven or eight per cent, on a fanding loan Three per cent, was his suggestion, or a fraction over three per cent. as a maximum, fand there he stuck. This was disconcerting, The "unsecured" bonds had all gone up on the market in anticipation of the conference and what the bankers were going—to Bring away from it, and the one nouncement that the bonds would be issued at a trifle over three per ent. would certainly have created huge slump in Chinese securi jen all over the world. ttle Loan" all to grease the wheels, and. it seems to have been agreed that maximum of Mex.—$25,000000 was agreed upon—say not that this was in case as much of China as "Messrs, W. W. Yen and C. 'Wang then represented would have to be bribed to sign an agreement giving 7 per cent. interest and Aniuring the integrity of the foreign Custums Administration during the period of amortization, 'AIL the old' pledges about. giving China money when she was united and fit for it and then only for constructive purposes,. were lightly forgotten and It was contemplated without. qualm that, the Chinese people should be saddled with the responsibility for another $25,000,- 000 Joan, so. that the Anfu-FengtienBolshevik combine—that wag then Peking might have this sunt to squander, T. Wang's Present Dilemma Since then things have happened, however, which*have changed—the whole aspect of the case. C. T. firmed all Peking in the bell the foreigners are here to give things away and that she does not shave to bargain, but to ask and receive. Nowhere is this convietion stronger than in C. T. Wang's mad radical constituency and is now doubtful whether he: would dare to confess to the radicals that he had pledged China to vninter-
The question of the interest would not matter so much because—this they would not. understand unless Comrade: Karakhan's agents saw) fit: to enlighten them, 'Oni the other hand the bankers} ate'certainly not going to- allow, the loan question tobe discussed) 14 the unhappy foreign merchants in' China have allowed, portores, the Customs autonomy que be settled. If the Chinese delegation refuses to agree to protracted foreign contract of the Customs Col-Tectorate, the delegates representing the Consortium have nothing to do but walk out, for to agree to turn the Customs over to " purely Pekingese administration in five] or ten years and then go home and sell $25,000,000 worth of bonds! would be nothing but a erne! swirld. lo, of which no repotable banker would be capable.
What the upshot of this issue will be no one can guess but the! most pious hope that one can ex press is that the imminent war ference and pos?- allied with it until Chi respectable Government which. the Powers can deal with in the con vietion that they are not parties '0 a. burlesque.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.